


Mistletoe on the Ground

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Series: 12 Days of Ficmas 2018 [10]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Mistletoe, New York City, i'm up in feels about my city and found family and being home for the holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 19:49:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16960425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: For the prompt: "caught under the mistletoe, friends to lovers?"





	Mistletoe on the Ground

Dante was wrong; the seventh level of hell was not the circle of violence, but actually the Trader Joe’s on Broadway, during rush hour after work.

The line wrapped around the store twice and Clarke’s feet had been killing her before they joined the end of it. Twenty minutes later, and they hadn’t even made it past the smoked salmon, and she’d given up on keeping Madi near the cart. Her daughter had bolted as soon as she was given permission; every now and then, Clarke say a glimpse of a brown pony tail through the legs on different shoppers. She reappeared every now and then to drop odds and ends into the cart. First it was peanut butter cups, then honey lavender epsom salts, and Clarke stopped checking after the advent calendar for the dog in the apartment next to theirs.

Another thirty minutes, and an entirely-too-chipper cashier wished Clarke a happy holiday, as she pushed up the sleeves of her sweater so she could thread the paper bags onto her arms. 

Madi popped up next to her to helpfully carry one (1) of them. 

It wasn’t too many blocks back to their apartment in the Village, so Clarke didn’t mind too much. 

Her arms were burning by the time she made it up the steps to their floor, but she managed to set the bags down lightly enough on the table to not break anything. Madi rounded the table and started putting things around the kitchen as Clarke handed them to her. 

Frozen croissants--freezer. 

Snowflake-shaped pasta--cupboard. 

Tapenade--fridge. 

Mistletoe--what. 

“Madi, what is this?”

Madi’s head appeared around the refrigerator door. “Mistletoe,” she chirped, before vanishing again.

“Okay, but  _ why  _ is this?”

“Because,” Madi grunted, and there was a sliding as she rearranged something glass, “it was $3 and you weren’t looking.”

“No, that’s a how.”

“What?”

“Because it’s cheap and I wasn’t paying attention is  _ how  _ you got me to buy this, not why.”

Madi shut the fridge triumphantly, swiping a can of hot chocolate off the table and moved over to the cabinets. “Didn’t think you’d be oblivious about this too,” she mumbled.

“I’m sorry, what--”

“I mean,” Madi anticipated the question, coming back to the table to grab a box of mac and cheese. “That if you and Bellamy can both be so clueless around each other, then it tracks that you don’t get why I’d buy mistletoe.”

“Why  _ I’d  _ buy mistletoe,” Clarke corrected.

“Right,” Madi sighed, “because  _ that’s  _ the key takeaway.”

Clarke gave her daughter a bag of oranges and a stern look, and Madi held her tongue. Clarke folded the bags. 

It wasn’t like Madi insisting she had feelings for her best friend was new news. 

He lived a couple blocks east, and came over once a week for dinner. Twice if he was around. Three times if he took the long way home from work and stopped by the Gansevoort market to grab Madi some of the cookies she liked, or four if he had papers to grade from the University and it was raining so Clarke’s apartment was closer than his. Five just because. 

Okay, so he was over more often than not. 

And maybe it made Clarke’s heart lighter, seeing how easy he was with Madi, how careful and attentive and funny. Maybe Madi stood up a little straighter when he was around and maybe Clarke let herself pretend, every now and then, that they were as perfect a family as they looked to an outsider. 

Of course, an outsider wouldn’t know that Bellamy hadn’t been in a relationship in all the time he’d known Clarke, so clearly it wasn’t something he was in to. 

It’d been a couple of years now, since she’d realized she had feelings for him. She’d flirted a couple of times, just out of curiosity, but he hadn’t done anything, not really, just flirted back a bit so she wouldn’t be uncomfortable. He’d always done that, mirrored her, taken his cue from her. Clarke had hoped this would be the exception, but time would say it wasn’t. 

Still, she liked having him around. 

Even if every time her heart skipped, it was a reminder that it had no right to. That though they may look the part, even feel the part, they weren’t a family. Not how Madi wanted them to be anyways. 

Clarke tossed the brown paper package into a drawer with all the phone chargers; Bellamy would be coming over soon, and the last thing she needed was for Madi’s fanciful ideas to make it awkward for all of them. 

Bellamy brought pizza from somewhere on Bleeker, and Clarke threw it in the oven on top of some parchment paper to reheat after the cold walk. Madi was in the living room, watching The Grinch (the original, because Bellamy refused to allow anything contrary), and Clarke was at the dining room table when she heard Bellamy rummaging through the drawers. 

“I leave a charger over here like every other week,” he grumbled, “How do you never have a…”

She knew he saw it when his voice tapered off. Sliding a bookmark into her book, she went into the kitchen before Madi heard what was happening. 

“Madi snuck it into the cart,” she explained, her voice hushed.

She couldn’t read the expression on his face. His brow was furrowed, turning the brown bag over in his hands, slowly, like he was processing. 

“You know how Trader Joe’s is in rush hour,” she continued, hurriedly, “it’s crazy and so hectic and so I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Madi got you mistletoe?”

“She got  _ us  _ mistletoe.”

The correction slipped out before Clarke could stop it, and her eyes darted up to Bellamy’s to see how he’d react to that. 

React would be an overstatement, because nothing changed, he just continued to turn the package in his hands.  

“Obviously not us, I mean,” Clarke amended, needing him to say something but not sure what would prompt something out of it. “Well, for me, yeah, and assuming you would come over, and with the normal fanfare of how oblivious we are--”

His head snapped up. “We?”

Clarke blinked. “Um. I mean, me. Well, maybe you. I don’t know, Bell, just tell me what to say to make it not awkward.”

He laughed, something short as he looked down at his hands again, and then lifted his head to look at her. When his eyes met hers, they were bright, shining like the trees in the square or the lights of the city at night. Clarke held her breath, not sure what she was waiting for, but knowing she was absolutely waiting. 

“Clarke...” he said her voice so softly, so full, rich and heavy with something she didn’t recognize, but she needed to hear again to decipher. So she swallowed, nodded a bit. Bellamy shook his head, and Clarke couldn’t look away from his eyes, his beautiful eyes, and then she felt a gentle pressure on her cheek. His forefinger brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and then he lingered there, a light touch, soft like snow. “You have to know.”

Clarke frowned, uncertain, but then Bellamy’s hand traveled down her face. Over her cheek, along her jaw, light on her chin, and then he crooked a finger just under her jawline and tilted her head up. Clarke’s first thought was maybe she had something on her face, but then she realized no, he would’ve just told her, and before she could make another frantic excuse Bellamy was lowering his head and he kissed her. 

He kissed her like New York, like she was too wonderful to be real, too good to last, too bright to hold. He kissed her like Christmas, like she was what he’d dreamed of asking for, hoped to find, planned to keep. He kissed her like home, like a warm fire and sparkling fairy lights, with her heart in his hands, mistletoe on the ground between them. 


End file.
